Sanabi (2023)

It's a platformer, and sadly that's just not my definition of fun, however I do still feel the need to recommend this.

I'm always in awe of any piece of art that's far more ambitious than it has any right to be, I mean the scale of this, the movement mechanics, the aesthetic, bravo! I'm sure someone out there stumbled upon this gem and made it part of their personality and I'm happy for them, sadly the idea of jumping and swinging from box to box again and again for 10 hours straight is more torture than I'm willing to endure. That does not take away from the quality of work in display here.

If anything, this game reinforces the the critical importance of spending time with your kids - yes, even after a hard day's work. If only more people took that simple advice to heart.

I will recommend this game, but under a few caveats. You will probably get frustrated unless you are really really into platformers. I like platformers, but I'm not hardcore. I thought the majority of the platforming areas were great, but there were certain parts throughout the story that were just frustrating as heck. I played on normal difficulty. There are areas that require pinpoint precision and timing in order to pass or else you will spend a lot of time just doing it over, and over, and over, and over again. There are areas that will frustrate you to no end and when you finally complete that one difficult part, there's a blind jump ahead that you just didn't know you were supposed to blindly jump into, and so you died and will have to start that section over. There are also boss fights that are excruciatingly long. What, you think you have to hit this boss/complete this mechanic 6 times to win? No, 8? Try 24. My frustration was so high I had to step away from the game for like a week before I came back to finish it. When you sit down to play, be prepared for a long session because you'll either get sucked into the story, you won't know where a good checkpoint is, or you'll want to finish a really difficult platforming area before you lose the skills you've warmed up playing it over and over and over and over again. I don't recommend staying away too long if you do play multiple sessions. The game isn't that long, and you could easily forget some key parts of the story if you take a long break.

The story is good, the graphics are excellent, and the writing is engaging. The translation on a few dialogues were missing words that made it difficult to understand what was being said, but overall it was well done. The platforming controls are fluid and any mistakes are definitely on the part of the user - however as I stated before, there are just some areas that require perfect timing, and I think that was a mistake. It would have been nice to have a bit of cushion on some parts. It appears the difficulty level you pick at the beginning only deals with your health and has nothing to do with the platforming areas timing or check points. I think the easier mode should probably include more checkpoints instead of more health. I would have enjoyed the game a lot more if I could have followed the story along with some challenging (not brutal) platforming. Instead, there were parts that I felt were just frustratingly hard.
3.5/5 stars.

Sanabi is a fast paced sci-fi platformer featuring a excellent chain claw mechanic and a strange story. It is more linear than I typically prefer, but the player feel is so addicting it won me over.

It has a very similar feel to modern spiderman - great physics, intense platforming, and stylish combat.

My only complaint - sometimes the cutscenes slow the pace down to a crawl. As addicting as the gameplay is, it can get a bit tiresome to go through 10 minutes of dialogue and exposition (even though it is pretty well written written)

But overall, I had a really great time with it and would recommend just for the unique and perfected player feel and atmosphere.

what i liked:

• interesting and well thought out cyberpunk narrative with it's own unique charm and an intriguing lore.

• compelling and emotional story. the opening really caught me off guard, be prepared! loved the overall writing so far.

• gorgeous pixel artstyle and a stunning art direction. definitely one of the best looking pixel games out there. the backdrops are crafted with care and an eye for details.

• the animations are quite well done. excellent work which makes the scenes feel more a live.

• fast and responsive controls which makes platforming and combat a pleasure.

• the grapling arm is such a fun tool for toying around and you'll get more and more possibilities in use the further you get.

• difficulty seems pretty easy at first, even on higher difficulties, but will get much tougher once you progress further into the game.

• a fair amount of checkpoints and repair stations (healing) to prevent frustration.

• diverse and enjoyable boss fights with different themes and unique mechanics. the overall difficulty is pretty high and i loved every second of it.

• many memorable characters throughout the game.

• insane soundtrack, so many bangers - it's a delight.

what felt debatable to me:

~ keep in mind sanabi is a plot heavy game with many "cutscenes" and dialogues, so if you're coming only for the gameplay, you may get somewhat disappointed despite having some excellent gameplay to offer, since there are a lot of slow paced narrative parts without any gameplay at all. personally i do love the game how it is, so more of a pro for me, but i had to point this fact out for other players.

~ no achievements in this early access at the moment.

~ the length of the early access is on the shorter side.

what i disliked:

• didn't like the dialogue font in general and there are some even more disturbing aspects to it. it's partly different sized to highlight people shouting or so and the letters are shaking at times - pretty unpleasant to read, i have to admit.

• sometimes the dialogue boxes are almost completely overlapping each other which makes the back one kinda impossible to read.

• yet again another dialogue issue. sometimes characters are auto continuing their dialogues quite quickly and i was barely (or unable) to read everything.

• cut these modern meme words (boomer, jk, sheesh, yada yada, sus, and so on - you get the point) from your dialogues. it simply feels lazy written and is killing the immersion to a problematic degree. i really don't need some internet douches talking meme language in my videogames, at least not in this kind of game.

8.5/10 due to some excellent design choices, but they definitely have to step up their dialogue presentation. sanabi is narrative heavy and story driven with much text, so you have to make this aspect of the game as pleasant as possible. the potential for a 10/10 is definitely there!